Hot topics in November

Kosmos

Culture, travel, fashion and culinary delights: the Kosmos pages of Lufthansa Magazin bring you interesting and useful tidbits from around the world

Mr. Know it all

Global Copyshop

The Eiffel Tower is in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York and Tower Bridge in London? Undoubtedly. But the three most famous city landmarks in the world also have doppelgangers elsewhere on the planet.

Eiffel tower

There are replicas of the famous tower in Tokyo (taller than the original), Las Vegas and Tianducheng in China, where an entire neighborhood was built in the Parisian style – and is currently largely unoccupied.

Statue of Liberty

Paris boasts three scale copies of the New York landmark, and there are less exact replicas elsewhere in the world, including a Lego brick copy in Legoland (scale 1:5). The largest replica (scale 1:2) is in Las Vegas.

Tower Bridge

A copy of Tower Bridge stands in Suzhou in China – but strangely, it has four instead of two towers. The city also has replicas of Sydney’s modern Harbour Bridge and the Neo-Baroque Pont Alexandre III in Paris spanning its canals.

Who else is celebrating?

Google, the Smart car, the iMac, Hong Kong International Airport and the cult film The Big Lebowski all turn 20 this year. Flying high in the charts in 1998: “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy” by The Offspring, “Frozen” by Madonna and “Big Big World” by Emilia.

Masterful model

Before they conquered Beijing in 1644, the rulers of the Qing dynasty had already created a miniature version of the Forbidden City in the country’s northeast. Although twelve times smaller, its inimitable design com­bined elements from Manchuria, Mongolia and China. In addition, the buildings that make up the Shenyang Imperial Palace, now a museum, are based on nomads’ yurts.

Reading lounge

In the past ten years, the number of visitors to Frankfurt has increased by 68 percent. In October, even more people will be arriving for the Frankfurt Book Fair. So it’s a good idea to plan ahead for your visit to this lively city: As the name suggests, the Hyatt Place Frankfurt Airport is just minutes from the airport. Its casual atmosphere makes it perfect for leaf­ing through those books you just bought.